Business Leader

In the 1980s and the 1990s, Serie A was the best football league in the world. The Italian league was where players wanted to play and what fans wanted to watch. Diego Maradona, Marco van Basten and Roberto Baggio were superstars and playing in Serie A. But in recent years that has not been the case. Serie A has been overtaken by other leagues, notably the English Premier League. Now, however, Serie A is fighting back. In this episode of Business Leader, Michele Ciccarese, the commercial and marketing director of Serie A, explains how...

Sir Rocco Forte has led two businesses worth more than £1 billion. The first, Forte Group, was founded by his father, Charles. It owned hotels and restaurants and was one of the biggest companies in the UK. But in 1996 it was lost. Forte was taken over by Granada after a hostile bid battle and then dismantled. Sir Rocco had to start again. At first he had no properties and couldn't even use the family name. But Rocco Forte Hotels is now valued at £1.2 billion. This is the story about how Sir Rocco fought back and his thoughts on how to grow a business

Andrew Dudum founded Hims & Hers to try to bring healthcare into the digital age. The business is a wellness platform that specialises in treatments for conditions that traditionally have a stigma attached, such as hair loss, acne and erectile dysfunction. It allows people access to over-the-counter drugs and prescriptions following an online consultation with a qualified doctor. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021. It is now valued at more than $3.5bn (£2.7bn) and has more than 1.7 million subscribers. Dudum says he has built the business while aspiring to be “the least interesting person in the room”. This is the story behind how he did it...

Chris Oglesby succeeded his father Michael as chief executive of Bruntwood in 1999. Since then he has grown Bruntwood into one of the biggest and most important businesses in northern England. Bruntwood is responsible for much of the regeneration work in Manchester in recent years and is working on property developments across northern England. The company thinks there is an opportunity to transform the economy in northern England. But the Oglesby family has recently been hit by tragedy

Joanna Knight was an entrepreneur running a business that imported components for laser printer cartridges into the UK. But it was struggling. Her mother urged her to get a job. So Joanna Knight did. She joined Wrexham-based Moneypenny as its first sales director. More than a decade later she is now the chief executive of Moneypenny, one of the fastest-growing companies in the UK. "Failure is just another step to success," Knight says. This is the story of how she went from failure to CEO, the challenge of adapting to that role and the future of Moneypenny

Hawksmoor was founded by friends Will Beckett and Huw Gott in 2006 and the pair now have 10 restaurants in the UK. From humble beginnings in a former Turkish restaurant in London, Hawksmoor generated sales of more than £90m in 2023 and is now expanding overseas.In this episode of Business Leader, Dougal Shaw looks at the story behind a culinary and business success. “People don’t like being miserable," says Beckett. "One of the joys in life is spending time with people in restaurants."Beckett and Gott are childhood friends and lifelong foodies. Their parents also worked in the food business. In their mid-twenties the co-founders ran several London bars. These didn’t take off, but it taught them valuable business lessons about hiring and venue location.  They hit on a winning formula with Hawksmoor, realising that there was a gap in the market because steak meals were associated with French bistros or American-style diners: “In a country really famous for beef, there wasn’t a British restaurant, that idea of Britishness made a difference."  

Airbus is one of the biggest manufacturing businesses in the UK, Europe and the world. In this episode of Business Leader, we look at Airbus's business in the UK, its commitment to manufacturing in the country and its concerns about the geopolitical situation. We speak to John Harrison, the chairman of Airbus UK, the most senior Brit in the company and also its general counsel

Sage is exactly the sort of company the UK needs more of. It is the biggest UK technology company on the stock market and is valued at more than £10 billion. Not only that, but it is based in Newcastle and outside the south-east of England. This is the story behind how it went from a promising business to a FTSE 100 giant and the leadership of chief executive Steve Hare, who rebuilt his career after being told he would never work in the City again...